Neither of us had ever been there. It was of some slight interest to me as being famous—a great cure and the quondam resort of my brother Paul, who was fond of places of this kind. Indeed, he was a kind of modern Falstaff, roystering with drinkers and women and having a gay time of it wherever he was—a vigorous animal soul, with a world of sentiment and a capacity for living which was the admiration and the marvel of all beholders.
So we were off.
In so far as this part of the trip was concerned, I can truthfully say the attraction was off. There was still Bloomington, my one year university town, but beside Warsaw and Terre Haute and Sullivan and Evansville—how it paled! Chicago was really of much more interest to me, the Chicago that I visited between Evansville and Warsaw, but this trip did not include that. Besides, I had been to Chicago so often since.
We followed hot, wet bottom lands to Boonville, a poorer town even than Sullivan, with unpaved streets and a skimpy county fair not to be compared with the one of Knox County, in which Vincennes was situated. Then we struck northeast through a region where the roads were so bad that it seemed we should never come through with the car. Water puddles, and streams even, blocked the way. At one place we shot over a bridge the far end of which sank as we crossed, and a ditch of nine feet of depth yawned beside the track, separated by but one foot of earth! Death seemed to zip close to my ear at that moment. We saw poor homes, poor stores, wretched farms, shabby, almost ragged people. At one town, Selvin, on the road to Huntingberg, a pretty country girl “tending” the general store there asked us if we were coming from Boonville, and when we said yes, asked if we had seen the fair.
“Yes,” replied Franklin.
“It’s fine, isn’t it?” she commented.
“Yes,” he replied gently.
You can imagine the isolation of this region when I tell you that our automobile attracted universal attention; that we saw only one other between Boonville and Huntingberg; that dogs and horses ran away frightened at the horn; and that children ran out to see. This did not seem quite possible.
At Holland, however, in the southwest corner of Dubois County, we encountered a splendid road, smooth and white, along which we tore. Indeed, this whole county proved a revelation, for whereas the two preceding ones were poor, wretched even, this was prosperous and delightful to look upon. Great meadows of emerald were interspersed with splendid forests of ash and beech. One saw sheep and Jersey and Holstein cattle in the fields, and for a novelty, new for me in America, repeated flocks of snow white geese, great droves of them,—a region, no doubt, given to feather raising.
Huntingberg was alive and clean—a truly handsome little town with well built houses, wide streets, attractive stores, a brisk, businesslike atmosphere. It was really charming, romantically so. Beyond it was an equally fine road leading to Jasper, the county seat. On this we encountered a beech grove so noble and well planned that it had the sanctity and aroma of a great cathedral. Through the columns of trees one could see the sun sinking—a great red ball of fire. The sky was sapphire and the air cool. Those lowings and bleatings and callings and tinklings of evening were just beginning. We ran the car into a fence pocket, and letting down the bars of a gate walked into this great hall. I was deeply impressed—moved really. I put my arms behind my back and gazed aloft into the silvery branches. I laid reverent hands on their smooth, silvery trunks—and my cheek. I almost asked them to bless me—to help me grow strong, natural, frank—all that a struggling mind in a mystic world should become. I spoke to the red sun in the West and bade it adieu for another night. I looked into the small still pools of water to be found here, wherein stars would see their faces latterly, and begged of all wood sprites and water nymphs, nixies and pixies, that some day, soon perhaps, they would make me one in their happy councils and revels. I looked up through the trees to the sky, and told myself again, as I do each day, that life is good, that in spite of contest and bitterness and defeated hopes and lost ambitions and sickness and envy and hate and death—still, still, there is this wondrous spectacle which, though it may have no part or lot with us, or we with it, yet provides all we know of life. The sigh of winds, the lap of waters, the call of birds—all color, fragrance, yearning, hope, sweet memory—of what old mysteries are these compounded!